


Marked

by dozmuffinxc



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-28
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-26 05:14:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3838456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dozmuffinxc/pseuds/dozmuffinxc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” ― Kahlil Gibran</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Resurrection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three months. That’s how long it had taken John to move back to Baker Street after Sherlock returned from the dead.

Three months. That’s how long it had taken John to move back to Baker Street after Sherlock returned from the dead.

Not that he had had a better offer. The bedsits he had been shuffling between for the last two years could never be called “homey,” and although he had had a few short-lived relationships, none of them had lasted long enough to constitute the effort of finding a shared flat.

No: it had been the principal of the thing. Sherlock had abandoned him and the world had vanished beneath his feet in the span of time it took for the body of his best friend to fall from the roof of St. Bart’s to the rain-slick pavement below. It turned out that the body had not been Sherlock’s after all, but John couldn’t have known that, _didn’t_ know that, until the ghost of the most impossible, infuriating, incredible man he had ever known had waltzed back into his life as though he had never left. John hadn’t been about to let Sherlock get off so easily.

John had spent weeks after Sherlock’s supposed suicide shut up in Baker Street, unresponsive even to Mrs. Hudson’s pleas that he come down for a cup of tea. It didn’t occur to him until later that Mycroft must have been paying the bills, and a good thing it was. John had barely gotten up from the couch except to use the loo; holding down a job would have been next to impossible. If it hadn’t been for the trays of food left on the landing by the blessed Mrs. Hudson, John would have wasted away in the tomb that 221B Baker Street had become.

The day he’d packed a bag and left Baker Street behind for what he believed would be the last time had been no different than the dozens of days previous. John had been curled up in his armchair by the fireplace, staring down Sherlock’s dusty violin case. The clock had just chimed ten and the faint light of a grey London morning had been filtering weakly through the drawn curtains when he had settled into place, but it was dark before he had moved again. Perhaps it was the realization that an entire day had disappeared without his noticing, or perhaps it was his eyes watering at the smudge of a fingerprint on the clasp of the case that had given him the angry strength necessary to climb the stairs and pack a kitbag with the bare essentials.

He took very little with him when he left, and he didn’t look back. What little he had in his savings had funded a tiny room at a shady hostel for the three weeks it took to find a job, and just when the digits in his account were becoming perilously low, a vacancy at a clinic just off Finchley Road opened up and he had been hired on the spot.

John had been working a double shift when a shadow had fallen across his desk and obscured his view of the case file in front of him. Assuming it to be a nurse ushering in his next patient, John hadn’t even looked up until he realized that, whoever it was, they hadn’t made a move to enter the room. It took his sleep-deprived brain a full minute to connect the disparate parts of the whole: dark, tousled hair in need of a trim, green-grey eyes that shifted color in the glare of the phosphorescent lights, and a long coat that had been covered in blood and grime when he had seen it last, splayed out across the pavement, enshrouding a corpse.

 John had felt the cold needles of panic jabbing familiarly in his gut. He must have gone pale because Sherlock was suddenly at his side, cool fingers pressing into the pulse point in his wrist while the palm of his other hand felt John’s forehead for a fever.

“Really, John, it’s like you’ve seen a ghost,” Sherlock said, leaning back on his haunches with the same self-satisfied smirk he always wore when he thought he had said something particularly clever.

The next few minutes had been a blur to John. He had been vaguely aware that they had exchanged words – he thinks he must have demanded explanations, and he’s equally certain that Sherlock gave none in return – but they had been drowned out by an incessant buzzing that filled the space between John’s ears.

The reunion had ended with John’s fist making contact with Sherlock’s face, hard knuckles making contact with sharp cheekbones, and Sherlock tipping over onto the floor of the surgery in a wobbly manner that would have struck John as hugely comical under any other circumstances. John would have stalked out of the room then, but his legs had gone strangely weak and it was only after Sherlock had regained his feet and walked out with an air of wounded pride that John was free to sink his face into his shaking hands and weep. Whether they were tears of anger or relief, he still isn’t certain.

It was almost a full month before John even started responding to Sherlock’s texts. They had become an almost hourly occurrence from the moment he had walked out of John’s office on that first afternoon, and for a time, John had seriously considered changing his number. Perhaps his quiescence had been the result of the weary certainty that any new phone number would be quickly ferreted out, or maybe he was just tired of feeling the twinge just below his breastbone every time the alert pinged with a new, snarky comment or the occasional whining observation. Whatever the case, he had written back.

One word: _Speedy’s_.

They had talked for half an hour over stale coffee in the diner, John staring at his hands while Sherlock made an attempt at awkward conversation. The truth – or as much as Sherlock was willing to reveal – came out in pieces: Sherlock had been abroad, eliminating the remnants of Moriarty’s network slowly but completely. When John asked why it had been a secret ( _three years, Sherlock_ ), the younger man shrugged and said that it would have been too risky to involve a partner, that he would have given away the plan.

John had very nearly punched Sherlock again, but something in the detective’s eyes had stopped him. There was regret there, or at least that’s what it looked like to John, so instead of leaving the café in a blind rage, he had stayed. He had clenched his fists, breathed deeply, shut his eyes… and nearly laughed himself silly as Sherlock supplied how glad he was that John had spent the last three years working on his anger management.

 _He was certainly going to need it_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woops! I just realized the original said "three years" when it's clearly stated in TEE that Sherlock was gone for two. Fixed that!


	2. Scarred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A rainy chase across London's West End ends in an unexpected revelation.

It had been a slow courtship, made up of conversations over innumerable cups of tea supplied by the long-suffering Mrs. Hudson and ending, more often than not, in John storming off back to his flat to brood over the irascibility of consulting detectives. In the end, though, John knew that there was no place he’d rather be than back in 221B Baker Street with the most insufferable, damnable, infuriating, impossible, incredible man he had ever known. And if Sherlock kept some secrets from him, well, what was new about that?

And so he had returned, and now, a few weeks later, here he was, thundering up the stairs to 221B on the heels of a soaking wet Sherlock. The detective was actively ignoring the half-hearted protestations of Mrs. Hudson about the state of her rug, but John paused for a moment on the landing to promise he’d clean up in the morning.

“Such a good boy,” she said. “Don’t know what he did without you all that time.”

John had no idea how to respond to that, so he shrugged and offered her a crooked smile before following Sherlock into the flat, taking care to wipe his feet thoroughly on the mat first.

Sherlock was already on his laptop, pounding out the results of their latest case. What had begun as a routine stake-out had ended in a foot chase through the back alleys and side-streets of London’s West End. The rain had started coming down in sheets before they had apprehended the subject, a stage-hand-turned-thief who had been passing off ancient artifacts as theater properties, and by the time he had been handed over to the NSY, the two men looked more or less as if they had just crawled out of the Thames.

John shed his own sopping jumper and tossed it in the sink to drain before crossing to Sherlock’s desk and staring at the back of his flat mate’s slick, dark head for a full five minutes, willing him to acknowledge the increasing drip-drip of water onto the rug beneath his chair.

“Sherlock,” he said at last, rolling his eyes at the disinterested grunt he received in response, “you’re dripping on the carpet.”

“Mmmm…?”

“You’re creating quite a puddle.”

This last remark didn’t even warrant a shrug.

“Mrs. Hudson will be cross if you ruin her rug and catch a cold all in one day.”

Whether driven by some secret store of affection for their long-suffering landlady or (more likely) by the promise of peace and quiet if he simply acquiesced, Sherlock set to unbuttoning his shirt with jerky, irritable motions, his eyes never leaving the computer screen. John watched with weary amusement, hand outstretched to receive the dripping garment that would no doubt become his duty to see properly laundered, as Sherlock drew his arm out of first one sleeve and then other.

Sherlock spun about in his chair to return to his work, tossing the offending garment over his shoulder. John cursed as he moved to catch the shirt before it splattered against the furniture, but he was immediately distracted by the suddenly-exposed expanse of Sherlock’s broad, pale back.

What John saw there caused his hands to drop uselessly to his side, his eyes widened in disbelief on Sherlock’s back as the shirt fell to the floor with a wet thud.

 In the yellow light of the desk lamp, a vast network of scars was revealed, crisscrossing from the nape of Sherlock’s neck to the small of his back. Some were as thin as floss, noticeable only by the shine of ghostly white flesh intersecting the darker, raised marks of thicker brands that had not been allowed to heal properly. John’s mind unconsciously took to cataloging the wound types – whip marks, lacerations from broad blades, and the unmistakable pitting of some kind of shrapnel – even as his mouth hung open in uncomprehending disbelief.

“If you’re just going to stand there,” Sherlock quipped, “you may as well make us some tea.”

When his command received no immediate reply, Sherlock huffed and swiveled about to throw John a scathing glare. Impatience was quickly replaced by a rare look of concern.

“John?”

Still no response. Sherlock rose to his feet in one fluid motion and was at John’s side before the doctor had had time to blink, easing him into his chair and staring intently into his eyes.

“Talk to me, John. What’s happened? Oh, for God’s sake – John!”

The threat of being shaken to pieces by an increasingly irate Sherlock put words into John’s mouth, and he managed to choke out, “Y-your… your back.”

“My—oh.”

The expression on Sherlock’s face was one that John had seen many times, but rarely on the face of his best friend. He had seen it on the faces of parents whose children did not make it out of surgery; he had seen it on the faces of soldiers who realized that they would not live to see the morning; he’d even seen it on his own face reflected back to him in the mirror of 221B in the days following Sherlock’s "suicide."

Sherlock’s eyes, normally so luminous with the spark of a million ideas, were suddenly dull. His forehead which had, only moments before, been creased with concern, smoothed over completely, and his lips straightened into a thin, pale line. The rigidity of his spine as he stood and crossed the room to retrieve a blanket from the couch looked painful.

“It’s only transport, John,” Sherlock said, draping the blanket like a shawl across his shoulders.

“How can you say that,” John blustered, rising unsteadily from his chair. “You were beaten, Sherlock – tortured, by the look of it. How did—what happened to you?”

“Honestly, John, I can’t see why you’re so upset.”

John felt the color drain from his face at the absurdity of this statement. Clenching his fists at his side, he moved towards the fireplace and leaned heavily against the mantle while choosing his next words with care.

“You wouldn’t, would you,” he said at last, staring at the soot stains in the carpet by his feet. “Never crosses your mind that someone might actually care about you, does it?”

“I fail to see how caring about me makes the least bit of difference here, John.”

Silence filled the space between them as John struggled not to put his fist through the wall. Sherlock must have felt the tension, for when he spoke again, his voice was quiet, pitched low as if he were speaking to a caged animal that might strike at the slightest provocation.

“It’s fine, John. I’m fine. Surely you must have known that eliminating Moriarty’s network would be dangerous. Sacrifices were necessary. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. I imagine Mycroft would have pulled me out if I had ever been in any real danger.”

 _How can he be so brilliant and so completely stupid at the same time_ , John thought, clenching his teeth until his jaw ached.

“I’m going out,” John said, retrieving his coat from its hook by the door. “Don’t wait up.”

If Sherlock had anything to say on the matter, his words were lost to the slam of the door and the heavy tread of John’s feet pounding down the stairs and out the front door.


	3. The Blame Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John walks the streets of London and stares down a security camera.

The tympanic roll of thunder beat across the taut, gray skin of a cloud-strewn sky as John wandered the streets of London with no destination in sight. He imagined he must look a sight, stalking the sidewalk in his sodden coat without the benefit of an umbrella, the rain plastering his hair to his forehead and dripping down his nose in a steady stream. Several passersby paused as they went by, some looking quickly away again while others paused to eye him with wary uncertainty. Was he muttering to himself?

 _Pull yourself together, John_.

He had hoped that the physical act of walking would ease his mind, put paid to the torrent of emotions that had his gut twisted into a Gordian knot of unease, but so far he had been disappointed.

Ever since Sherlock had returned, it felt like all John had were questions.

 _Where had he been? Was Moriarty truly gone? Was he back for good? Why had it been a secret? Why had he left John behind?_  

Sherlock had been hardly accommodating: terse replies that, “Yes, Moriarty is dead. Yes, John, obviously I am certain.” As to where had been: “Abroad.” Never any indication as to why he, John, had been abandoned. Why he had been kept in the dark and made to think that Sherlock – his best friend, his partner (literally) in crime – had died hated and alone.

Two years.

Now, just as he felt that he could live with those secrets, Sherlock unveiled yet another mystery. John paused in his pacing to brace himself against a phone booth, huffing short, quick bursts of air through his nose as he envisioned the map of scars etched across Sherlock’s back. They were not the result of one unfortunate encounter: the variety and severity of them indicated multiple attacks. John knew that Sherlock could defend himself, had seen him take down men twice his size with seeming ease, but at least three of those scars came from a whip and John hadn't seen anything like the shiny, circular burn marks across his shoulder blade since his time in Afghanistan.

Part of John knew that Sherlock neither wanted nor deserved his pity. After all, if he hadn’t insisted on taking on an entire terrorist organization by himself, he wouldn’t have those scars at all. But another, stronger part of him knew that there was nothing he wouldn’t do to protect Sherlock, and that part of John’s brain screamed of guilt and regret because _he should have been there_.

As he rounded a corner into the bustle of Tottenham Court Road, a movement out of the corner of his eye drew John’s attention out of himself and towards the swiveling head of a security camera perched atop a storefront on opposite side of the street. There was no question it had been tracking his movement just moments before, although now it was pointed demurely downwards.

It occurred to John in that moment that blaming himself and even blaming Sherlock was pointless. He couldn’t help it if his best friend hadn’t trusted him to help take down Moriarty’s network, and Sherlock had apparently suffered enough as a result of that decision already.

No: if blame must lie with someone, it should lie on the shoulders of the Someone whose power and influence should have been able to save them both from the pain and suffering of the last two years, the one person whom Sherlock admitted to having been in contact with, a man that Sherlock himself had once claimed was “the most dangerous man you’ll ever meet.”

John stared across the street at the security camera until the lens lifted once more. He was conscious of its unblinking attention as he hailed a cab that would take him to Pall Mall and to Mycroft Holmes.


	4. Brother Mine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He knew he was being irrational, but it hardly mattered. It was only the sound of a gun being cocked directly behind his right ear that made him pause and slacken his grip on the older man’s neck.

No one tried to stop him as he walked right past the doorman and through the unnatural quiet of the Diogenes Club. He remembered the way to Mycroft’s office, and as he followed the familiar path, he tried not to think about the last time he had been here, when Mycroft had admitted that he had given Moriarty the information that ultimately led to him and Sherlock on the rooftop of Bart’s Hospital.

Rage blossomed in John’s chest, and his gait quickened until he was at the door of the office and his hand was on the doorknob.

“Dr. Watson, always a plea---.”

John had the satisfaction of seeing Mycroft’s smirk wiped completely from his face by the pressure of John’s hand on his throat, his words cut off by the force of John’s arm thrusting him backwards into the wall. The older man did not struggle; instead, he raised his arms in mock surrender and regained enough composure to grin through the pain of fingers cutting off his air supply.

“H-hardly a need for v-violence, John.”

“Shut up,” John spat through clenched teeth. 

He knew he was being irrational, but it hardly mattered. It was only the sound of a gun being cocked directly behind his right ear that made him pause and slacken his grip on the older man’s neck.

“Step away from Mr. Holmes, please, Dr. Watson.”

Anthea’s cool, measured voice behind him was accompanied by the cool press of gunmetal against his temple. He wasn’t sure whether she would actually pull the trigger, but he wasn’t keen on finding out, so John released Mycroft and stepped slowly backwards while the other man straightened his tie.

“Thank you, Anthea. I think that will be enough for now.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“Oh, quite sure,” Mycroft replied, eyebrows reaching towards his hairline. “You won’t try to hurt me again, Dr. Watson, will you? Because I promise you that you will regret it very much if you do.”

A terse nod from John seemed answer enough. Anthea put the safety on her gun and tucked it discreetly into an inner pocket of her crisp business suit jacket, sparing a final look at her employer before leaving the room in a flurry of tap-tapping that indicated she had taken up her ever-present cell phone once more and moved on to other more pressing matters. 

“Now,” Mycroft said, settling into the large wingback chair behind his desk as though the last five minutes had never occurred, “as I was saying: to what do I owe this pleasure, Dr. Watson?”

Now that he was there, John realized he didn’t know how to begin. 

“I assume from the vein throbbing just above your left eye that this has something to do with my brother,” Mycroft observed, lacing his fingers together on the desktop, “but as he is not with you and I have had no reports of hospital visits in the past—” he checked his watch, “ten minutes, I assume it’s nothing dire.”

“You really are an arse,” John growled, falling heavily into the chair on the opposite side of the desk. “You pretend to care so much about Sherlock, but when he really needed you, you didn’t do a damn thing.”

A shadow passed across Mycroft’s face as realization set in.

“Ah,” he sighed. “You’ve seen them, then.”

John set his jaw and let his knuckles whiten on the chair’s wooden armrests.

“Honestly, I’m surprised it took this long. I rather thought Sherlock would have showed off his new marks to you the moment he got back. He does like to be dramatic.”

“Is this a joke to you,” John spat, leaning forward in his chair so that their faces were inches apart. “He was being beaten, tortured, and you knew – I know you knew, you know everything. That’s what you do, isn’t it? And you just let it happen! What sort of brother are you? What’s the point of you?!”

Mycroft waited until John had lowered himself back into his chair before breathing deeply and narrowing his eyes until they were little more than black slits set into the hard lines of his face. 

“I don’t suppose he told you how many times I offered him the aid of my operatives, arranged safe havens for him, interceded on his behalf in international criminal courts…? No, of course not. But you see he was convinced that if Moriarty’s network got even the slightest hint that he was alive, all would be lost. I’m afraid he was right. I was being watched, John, just as you were, and while I would have dropped everything to join him for what would inevitably have been our first and last time working together, he was quite insistent that he go it alone.”

“But he didn’t have to, did he? All he had to do was ask and I would have gone with him. Or did you convince him that he didn’t need me, either?”

For a moment, Mycroft looked truly surprised. It wasn’t an expression that John was used to seeing on the other man’s face, and it seemed to catch them both off guard. Mycroft was quick to school his expression into something cooler and more collected, but he couldn’t mask completely the curiosity in his gaze.

“He hasn’t told you, has he?”

John felt suddenly exhausted. All of the secrets, the lies…

“Told me what,” he asked, slumping against the cushioned backing of his armchair.

“I’m afraid that’s not for me to say, John,” Mycroft replied, standing suddenly and striding to the door of his office before John had a chance to protest. “And now I’m afraid you really must go. The British government won’t run itself, you know, and you wouldn’t want to outstay your welcome.”

Anthea appeared at the door as if by a summons, phone in one hand and a thick office binder in the other.

“There’s a car waiting for you out front, Dr. Watson,” she said, her voice flat and her eyes never meeting his. 

John couldn’t help glancing towards the slight bulge in her jacket as she ushered him out the door, through the lobby of the Diogenes Club, and out onto the curb where a discreet black car and driver waited to spirit him away.

“Where to, sir,” the driver asked, bending to open the passenger door.

John held onto the frame of the car door for a moment and considered before answering. It was a tempting prospect to have all of London at his disposal, and there was nothing he wanted more in that moment than to get absolutely pissed and forget that this day had ever happened. But he couldn’t shake what Mycroft had said. _He hasn’t told you, has he?_

“Baker Street,” John replied, sliding into the backseat and staring straight ahead. “221B Baker Street.”


	5. Resolution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John returns home and finally gets the answers he's been waiting for for two years. They are not quite what he had expected.

As the taxi pulled onto the quiet street, John held his breath and closed his eyes as though doing so could postpone the reality of whatever it was he was going to find when he stepped through the door of 221 Baker Street. He hardly knew what to expect from Sherlock on a normal day, let alone one where he’d left his flat mate shirtless and gaping while he himself huffed off to assault the head of the British government.

The front door was unlocked. He suspected Mrs. Hudson had heard him go out and left it open for his imminent return, but he neither saw nor heard any sign of her in the downstairs rooms.

 _God,_ John thought, _she probably heard everything._

And all at once he was utterly, devastatingly ashamed. Not because Mrs. Hudson may have overheard one of their “domestics,” but because it only then struck him how inappropriate had been his reaction when he had seen the marks on Sherlock’s back. He’s a doctor, for Christ’s sake; he’s seen worse than some bloody scars! 

_But that’s the problem_ , he mused darkly, taking the steps up to 221B at a slow drag, _he knew exactly what that sort of injury entailed, how it must have felt, what the healing process would have been like_. His fists clenched at his side and he leaned against the wall halfway to the landing, banishing those thoughts from his mind. Sherlock would read the pity on his face, and John knew that there was no surer way to turn the detective into his best impression of a blank-faced, marble statue.

John had the terrible impression that he was arriving to an empty flat when he opened the door to stillness and silence. As he stepped across the threshold and his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw that Sherlock was, in fact, there, and in almost exactly the same place that John had left him hours before. He had apparently discarded the blanket which now lay in an untidy lump at his feet and he had put on his shirt – still damp and uncharacteristically wrinkled – without fastening the top two buttons. Sherlock was staring into space, his eyes fixed blankly on the wall above the mantle, and he did not seem to notice when John crossed the carpet to stand in front in of him.

“Sherlock,” John whispered quietly, afraid of the reaction he would receive.

When Sherlock still did not respond, John reached out a tentative hand to touch the other man’s shoulder. They both startled at the same moment, John flinching at the shock of frigid, clammy fabric under his fingers and Sherlock jerking backwards as he came back to himself.

“You came back,” Sherlock observed, almost managing to hide the hint of a question mark.

“Yeah,” John replied gruffly, “Of course I did.”

“John, we… we need to talk.”

“We do, but listen, Sherlock,” John said, noticing the tiny tremors working their way down Sherlock’s lanky frame, “you need to change. You’ll catch your death of a cold in that wet shirt.”

For once, Sherlock did not argue. John sunk heavily onto the couch as Sherlock disappeared into his bedroom, and in the silence that followed, John noticed that he, too, was trembling, but not from the cold.

Sherlock emerged from his room a few minutes later wearing a pristine, black dress shirt and freshly-pressed, dry trousers. As he strode into the room, his eyes flickered over John’s clothes and seemed to pause at the sight of something on his shirtsleeve.

“You’ve been to see Mycroft,” he said, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, about that…”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Sherlock said, the ghost of a smile playing at his lips. “Only… what did my dear brother do to cause you to -- what, shove him into the wall of his office? Really, John. Your temper is truly a thing of beauty.”

John nearly laughed as he remembered the startled expression on the usually-stoic Mycroft’s face until he remembered why exactly he had been in the elder Holmes brother’s office in the first place. Sherlock must have noticed the change because he lowered himself into his chair by the hearth and schooled his expression until his face was unreadable once more.

“I’m sorry if I – upset you before, John,” Sherlock said carefully, his voice deep and even as he stared with impenetrable, quicksilver eyes at the slouched form of his friend. “You weren’t meant to see – what you saw. I assure you, they’re nothing to worry about. I know how you go in for sentiment, but—.”

“Please,” John said, holding up a hand that was, to his dismay, shaking ever-so-slightly. “Stop. If you think I’m going to buy the whole ‘I’m fine, really’ routine, you are hugely mistaken. Sherlock, you – you were _beaten_ , and I know that we aren’t talking about the last two years, but you are a fool if you think you can keep me from worrying just because you put on a clean shirt and tell me everything’s rosy.”

“It’s only transport, Joh—.”

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” John growled, “don’t you fucking _dare_. Jesus, Sherlock. I know you have no sense of self-preservation and that if you’d wanted a doctor along you would have taken me with you, but the least you could have done is look after yourself if you were going to leave me behind.”

Sherlock was on his feet so quickly that John almost missed the movement as he blinked back his own hot, angry tears. 

“You don’t understand,” Sherlock said, his voice oddly muted as he turned his back to John and braced himself with both hands against the window frame.

“Then _tell me_ ,” John pleaded.

For a moment, John thought that Sherlock had slipped into his mind palace and was going to ignore him altogether. The silence in the room had grown heavy before Sherlock spoke again, and when he did, his voice was flat and quiet.

“Moriarty would have killed you. He sent snipers after you and Lestrade and Mrs. Hudson and he shot himself before I could get him to call them off. He said that, if I didn’t jump, you would all die. What was I supposed to do? I had anticipated every eventuality; the corpse was readied in advance, records doctored to make it look like it was me on the coroner’s slab. If there was even the smallest hint that I didn’t bleed out on the pavement of St. Bart’s, they would have come for you. For all of you. I wanted to contact you so many times, but it was too dangerous, and Mycroft promised he would see you looked after. So you see, I didn’t ‘leave you behind.’ Not on purpose. Whatever you may think of me, John, you should know that that’s the one thing I would never do.”

John tasted the salt of his tears before he realized he was crying. He wiped fiercely at his face with the sleeve of his jumper, but he needn’t have bothered; Sherlock didn’t turn around, didn’t even move as the weight of his words struck John like an arrow to the chest.

Sherlock flinched at the touch of John’s hand on his shoulder a moment later, but he didn’t pull away as the smaller man wrapped his arms around him in an awkward embrace and pressed his chest against Sherlock’s back, molding his body to the curve of Sherlock’s spine. Sherlock felt himself ease into the hug, the tension seeping out of his muscles as John’s hands shifted against his chest and pressed themselves, palms flat, against Sherlock’s heart.

“I’m sorry,” they said, their voices nearly indistinguishable as they both said the words foremost in their minds.

When Mrs. Hudson crept upstairs to check on her boys later that evening, she beamed to find John in his favorite chair next to a roaring fire, a cup of tea at his side and another cup, untouched, steaming next to it while Sherlock played something that she thought might be Mozart on his violin. Rather than interrupt them, she set the tray of scones down on the kitchen counter and eased out of the flat on silent, beslippered feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhhhh gahhhhdd this turned out way too gushy and probably completely out-of-character, but I regret nothing! Thanks to wildcard_47 for reviewing this final chapter and making sure that I didn't write in too much sap. And thanks to YOU for reading this "fix-it" fic!
> 
> Also, the song that Sherlock is meant to be playing at the end is the opening to "Contessa Perdono" from Mozart's "The Marriage of Figarro."


End file.
